April 18, 2014

Liveblogging World War II: April 18, 1944

At 09.30 hours Corporal Judges and his section consisting of Privates Johnson,Thrussel and myself, as well as Corporal Veal’s section, went onto the road to help evacuate the wounded Indians, BORs, walking and stretcher cases. It was my job to look at the stretcher cases. If they were dead I had to send the Indian stretcher bearers round the back of the feature where they put the bodies in a heap to be buried later.…

At 11.00 hours Japanese shells started exploding among us and it was terrible to hear the screams of the injured. Corporal Judges and a large number of the walking wounded were killed. Captain Topham [who, as previously recorded, had been wounded on Garrison Hill and evacuated to the ADS on 10 April] was seriously injured [again, and later died in hospital].

I saw trunks without legs and arms and bodies with heads blown off. I ran off the road up onto the hill and the shells seemed to be following me. Soon four tanks appeared on the road, ﬁred at the Japanese gun that was shelling us and destroyed it.

We ventured onto the road again and continued the evacuation. At 16.00 hours we were shelled again but this time nobody was injured.We finished at 18.00 hours. We buried Corporal Judges ourselves and then returned to our positions...

Comments

At 09.30 hours Corporal Judges and his section consisting of Privates Johnson,Thrussel and myself, as well as Corporal Veal’s section, went onto the road to help evacuate the wounded Indians, BORs, walking and stretcher cases. It was my job to look at the stretcher cases. If they were dead I had to send the Indian stretcher bearers round the back of the feature where they put the bodies in a heap to be buried later.…